What happened in the Mississippi election in 1875?

Answer 1

On the eve of the 1875 state election, Senator Robert Gleed and his fellow Republicans were attacked by an armed force led by General Jacob Hunter Sharp. The following week, Sharp reported to the Columbus City Council that his force had shot and killed four African Americans and wounded three others. Among the wounded was one of Columbus' first African American police officers, Dennis Thatcher. Gleed later reported that "a whole race of people, twenty or thirty thousand," were forced to sleep in the woods at night for fear of assault by white Democrats whose candidates easily carried the election.